


Messages in the Dark

by illwynd



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Hope, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 11:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15460593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illwynd/pseuds/illwynd
Summary: Years after half the universe was lost to the Snap, Thor is on Earth trying to rebuild a future for himself and the remaining Asgardians. Then, one day, he receives a strange text message...





	Messages in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet was born out of a trope mashup tumblr meme. Cuquas asked for text/letter fic + love confession.

Five years since half the universe died, and the remnant of the people of Asgard reside now with the Midgardians. There is space aplenty, and they have been made welcome, and adapting to the ways of this realm has given them all some distraction from their great grief, their impossible loss.

Thor, for one, has a cell phone, and he is quite skilled in using it, although in many ways it will forever strike him as an outdated sort of device. He uses it to keep in touch with those who remain of his allies, the Avengers and other heroes and protectors of this world. He has all of their numbers stored among his contacts.

It is an otherwise unremarkable evening when the text message arrives, causing Thor’s phone to buzz quietly in his pocket.

It is… from a string of numbers that he does not recognize.

While he watches, the display distorts, and what had been ordinary Midgardian numerals… the display shivers, and the symbols now look strange. Unrecognizable but eerily familiar.

With a swipe of his thumb, Thor reveals the message that has been delivered to him.

And gasps and stares.

He holds tight to the little device, but he is frozen, unable to move.

With shaking hands, he types in a reply, his heart thumping in his chest.

> _Where are you_

It’s all he needs to know, and he hits Send.

He stares at the screen as his reply turns grey.

> [Message undelivered. Retry?]

Thor hits Retry again and again until he grows frantic. Frustrated. Gives up and turns to other options.

He brings the device swiftly to the dwelling of Iron Man, where he now lives with his red-haired lady and their young son. And Tony listens while Thor tells him what happened. As Thor brings forth the device, pulls up the text message screen.

Thor frowns. “It was here but a few minutes ago,” he says, distress thinning his voice.

Tony waits patiently, head tilted.

“I swear to you it was. I did not delete it. But no matter—perhaps you can still recover it! Or else simply discover whence it came. I must find who sent it.”

Only then does Tony rub his brow. “Thor, I’d like to help, but it’s not like on TV, I can’t just trace the call… well, y’know, it probably should be like that, and I ought to be able to. OK, let me see the phone. I’ll try, but I’m not promising anything.”

Thor thanks him.

An hour later, Tony hands the device back with little more than a shrug, hands lifted in futility.

“No message, not a trace of one. I can’t find anything, and it doesn’t look like anything was received at all in the last six hours. Are you sure it was what you think it was? I mean, Earth tech… you’re still new to it, sort of.”

Thor gives him a look. A scowl, more like. “Friend Stark, I know what I saw.”

Tony has the decency to look apologetic. But he still disbelieves.

Thor doesn’t care. He goes home, and he keeps the phone with him at all times from then on. Even more so than before.

The next time he receives such a message, it is at a terribly inconvenient moment, and that makes Thor even more certain. He sees the distorted digits and he stops all he is doing—shoving his opponent aside and raising a finger in the universal gesture for a brief halt in the fight—and reads, burning the message into his mind, in case it too disappears.

> _I’m not there. I’m sorry, brother. I wish I were._

It is all Thor can do not to let the tears rise then and there, gazing at the words. He recalls them all too well. He wants to be able to turn and feel Loki’s form in his arms again.

He also realizes it is an answer to his own unsent reply. So he types a new answer.

> _How are you able to speak to me_

Again, it will not send, but this time Thor does not worry. He watches for long enough to be sure that no more words are about to appear, then turns back to the fight, thinking all the while.

Thor speaks to others over the coming days, asking whether they have heard of any such communications from the dead before.

Clint Barton answers him without even a raised brow. “Your dead brother is sending you text messages,” he says, and it doesn’t sound like a question. “Sure. We already live in the darkest timeline. Why not.”

No one else believes Thor either. He thinks they suspect him of delusions, of denial born of grief. He catches looks of pity. He doesn’t care. His heart leaps into his throat each time his phone buzzes, doesn’t calm until he sees one of his ordinary contacts listed as sender.

When the next one from his brother comes, it is the middle of the night, and the soft vibration of his phone on his nightstand wakens Thor from sleep.

> _I’m not sure. I think I’m just an echo. I think I left some little bit of energy behind, just enough to tell you what you will need to know to win._

Thor gazes at the message, feeling too many things at once.

Part of him had been half hopeful that, somehow, Loki had deceived him once again and had been alive and well all this time while Thor mourned and suffered. Part of him is relieved that it’s not so, unsure that he could endure the betrayal.

Part of him is still staring at the words, aching at the thought that this silent voice—that this is not his brother’s soul, and if Thor tried to speak his heart, to bid farewell or say anything else he has still needed to say all these years, Loki would not really hear it. That even this is not the chance he hoped for.

Part of him, though, is frowning, trying to understand what those words can truly mean, for they have already lost. Decisively. What victory could there still be to win?

> _What do I need to know?_

Thor types in reply, and he is unsurprised when again it does not send.

He receives only three more messages after that, and they arrive in quick succession.

The first is a list. Labels.

> _Space. Mind. Time. Power. Reality. Soul._

Each comes with a set of coordinates, complicated strings of symbols of locations on Yggdrasil and beyond, and times, dates, some quite long ago, some only a few years past.

Thor stares, and he scrambles to copy them down in ink, on paper, in his own hand, before the message can disappear.

The second message…

> _Never doubt that I love you. More than you know. More than you believe._

Thor’s eyes sting with tears, and this time he lets them fall.

And the final message, that is the same as the first one he received when this began, the one that showed him who was sending these words to him.

The next day, Thor meets with the Avengers on other missions, and he just happens to be there when a pair of women—Janet and Hope van Dyne, who say they are mother and daughter, though to Thor’s eye they look nearly the same age—arrive, with a set of devices and claims of what they can do. They can travel through time. One wearing them could, with care, affect the past, in ways that will rewrite the present, change the future.

Thor listens, heart thumping in his chest.

He has the list of times and coordinates folded carefully in his pocket, and he steps forward, filled with certainty and determination, knowing what he must do. Knowing at last what the echo of his brother intended.

> _I promise you, brother, the sun will shine on us again._

Thor can feel its warmth already.


End file.
